


the blood in your cheeks

by rosyjaeh



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood, Blood and Injury, Horror, Immortals, M/M, Mental Instability, Mentions of Killing People, Monsters, Narrator Is Losing His Mind, No One Knows What's Happening And That Includes The Narrator And The Author, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Child Abuse, Reality vs Illusion, Trope: Nice Day Deadly Night, Trope: Psychological Horror, Unreliable Narrator, Urban Fantasy, creepy imagery, mentioned/referenced child abuse, mentions of period-typical homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosyjaeh/pseuds/rosyjaeh
Summary: This is not a city for pretty boys.Claws against the tiles, a crinkling where something brushes along the stacks of plastic wrappers. A candy shop, a simple candy shop, but the windows are shattered in what will be announced a robbery once the sun rises. Once the sun rises, and all is gone.You shouldn’t have come here.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43
Collections: NCT Spookfest Spring Scream





	the blood in your cheeks

**Author's Note:**

> is this spooky? is this me completely unhinging and writing whatever fucked up thing my mind comes up with first? tune in to find out!
> 
> thank you mel for looking over this little messy baby for me, and thank you to mod aj for hosting spookfest yet again! it's my first time participating but i really enjoyed the works of last round ! 
> 
> the tags aren't just for show, please pay attention to them! thank you and i hope you enjoy if you choose to read any further than this <3

We start in New York City, with the wind in Jaemin’s ears, snow on the mast but the water’s not frozen up yet. His coat is too big on his frame, smells like Jeno.

They’ll be stuck for a day or two at least, the near toothless man by the harbor said yesterday. Told them to rent a nice room, get something to eat, or a beer downtown.

Not that they could afford any of that, not even with Jeno’s loan.

Jeno dumped the coat on him before he left. “It’s cold out. You’ll grow into it.”

They stopped growing into things a long time ago, even before they left home.

There’s a tavern just off the harbor, cheap drinks and some rooms in the basement they give to you if you buy enough diluted whiskey. The sheets smell like rats, like something rotting in the wall, but everything here does. Not a place to stay, not for them. Jaemin leaves Jeno in the tavern.

He’s staring at someone. A boy, maybe his age, standing closer to the railing than Jaemin. His hair is dripping with melted snow, and the cold colored his cheeks a bright red. So very much alive.

Isn’t life all about that? About standing in the snow with a stranger, waiting for the day to pass? Jaemin would like to think so, when the boy turns around and smiles at him. He’d like to think that everyone smiles like this, this bright and alive, would like to think that life is about telling your story to strangers in the street.

But there’s more to it than that. There’s always more to it.

More to what, you ask, because you’ve long lost track of what he’s talking about. This story doesn’t make sense, you think as you smile and nod at the guy who sits across from you at the bar, too full of himself, and full of drinks, maybe, to realize what kind of nonsense he’s spewing. You indulge him because you love him.

There’s a thing you need to know about Jaemin, before he tells you this story. He’s right about everything, he was there when it happened, but he doesn’t know it. He only knows what Jeno tells him, what Renjun tells him.

They tell him that everything will be okay. That they’ll be home soon, when they hold him in the bottom of the ship, after he writes all of this down. They love him very much, that’s what you need to know about Jeno and Renjun, but they don’t understand, not the way Jaemin does. They say that everything will be okay.

But it won’t.

Down in the basement, it’s almost impossible to tell if it’s day or night. New York isn’t exactly known for being a sunny city and down here, barely any light reaches them. Jeno sits on the bed and writes, paper and his face illuminated by the tiny lamp on the nightstand.

“What’s his name?” He spins the pen between his fingers, and Jaemin can’t help but watch.

“Renjun.” It rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? A little hard to pronounce for a foreign tongue, distinctly Chinese, but it’s so pretty. “I met him down by the docks.”

“Didn’t think anyone else would be crazy enough to go outside in this weather.”

“That’s because you’re only used to the people from back home.” Jaemin flops down on the bed next to him, wooden frame digging into his back through the thin mattress. “This is _New York_ , there’s no small town people here. They go outside in the snow and they smoke in the streets. I love it here.”

He flicks Jeno against the head when he doesn’t react, until he falls into the pillow beside him. A smile and fingers intertwined on top of Jeno’s belly. “I don’t think this is too bad a place to be stuck in.”

Jeno looks at him, keeps looking at him until there’s nothing but Jaemin’s reflection in his eyes, squeezes his hand a little. “Don’t get too comfortable,” he says, but there’s a smile, somewhere in his face. “We’re not staying.”

This isn’t a place to stay for two boys on the search for themselves, and their ship is tied in the harbor. Once the snow melts, they’ll be back out on the ocean. This room is not what they dreamed of when they got on the ship, shiny flyer in hand. The water is icy when Jaemin dips his hands into the sink, and he lies awake at night. At what they think is night, his head pressed against Jeno’s shoulder. Too little light.

Not a place to get comfortable in, even if the city has pretty boys lingering by the harbor, a stranger’s warmth in the snow, people smoking in the streets and golden beer pouring from the taverns.

“If we had a little more money, this would be a nice place to stay in for a while, I think.”

Jeno hums into his forehead, strokes a hand down his arm. “Maybe we can come back one day. When we’re Korea’s first homosexual millionaires, rent out one of those fancy hotel rooms and commit crimes all night.”

Jaemin laughs, filling out his chest. “The rich must have it so easy, doing whatever they want.”

“One day we’ll belong to them. That’s the American dream, babe.” Jeno’s smile is so bright, even in the dullness of the nightstand lamp. A beacon of light, a warm hand in the dark. He’s always kept Jaemin standing. “One day we’ll get on our own boat and see how beautiful the world really is. This could be such a nice city.”

“Mhm.” Jaemin pushes an arm under his head. “I think it’s already pretty nice like this.”

They both don’t know how wrong they are, but for a night, it’s okay to dream.

Hands wrapped around his head, knees drawn to his chest, there’s a voice in the wall, a faucet in the back.

Renjun is in here, somewhere, Jaemin saw him. Curled up under the strobe light, flickering, a strange hum in the air and Renjun wasn’t more than a mop of black hair attached to a rag doll body. He’s not dead, Jaemin tells himself, whispers it out loud, for good measure. None of them are dead yet.

He might be behind the counter, bleeding out into the stack of magazines, but Jaemin can’t move. The voice nails him to the cold tiled floor, leaves him screaming, crying. Not a sound leaves his throat, his face is dry.

_This is not a city for pretty boys._ Claws against the tiles, a crinkling where something brushes along the stacks of plastic wrappers. A candy shop, a simple candy shop, but the windows are shattered in what will be announced a robbery once the sun rises. Once the sun rises, and all is gone. _You shouldn’t have come here._

The echo of a groan from behind a stack of chocolate, thrown over, and it sounds so much like Jeno. But Jeno shouldn’t be here, Jeno is in their room in the tavern, packing for tomorrow. Jeno isn’t here.

Jeno isn’t here, Renjun isn’t bleeding out under the strobe light behind the counter, maybe Jaemin isn’t even propped up against the wall under the shattered window. The shards digging into his palms feel real, but so does the voice in his head. He’s not losing his mind, but he doesn’t know where he is. Were Jeno and Renjun with him when he left the tavern, did they see the shadow crashing through the window? Did anyone see?

They shouldn’t have come here, but what choice did they have? 

Sharp claws that scratch against the tiles, crinkling wrappers and the voice that sounds like Jeno groans again. He isn’t here. None of them are here, none of them are dead yet.

Jaemin isn’t losing his mind. He stares into the red eyes that blink at him from behind the shelf, and grabs the big shard next to him. There’s no pain if he can’t see the blood trickling onto the white tiles.

The snow has eased up a little, but the air’s colder now. Jeno accompanies him to the harbor this time.

Renjun looks better with dry hair, dust caught in the strands, cheeks and the tip of his nose still frozen red. He waves, leaned against the wooden rail in his patched up coat. Not enough to keep the cold out.

New York winters are rough, summers even harder, if you could believe the locals. Faces obscured in scarves, every inch of skin covered in wool. People that are not to be trusted, gloves that hide the crime, there’s something eerie about a city without faces, sweating under all that wool.

Renjun is a face, and Jeno is. Jaemin hopes he’s one, but he can’t see himself in the mirror.

The dusty air paints Renjun grainy and grey, a picture like the ones the downtown photographers take, but he’s still so red underneath. Red face under the dust particles caught in his lashes, red heart under a brown coat.

“You’re late,” but he smiles when he says it. Three boys, New York Harbor, the white winter sun, and ships covered in ice. The water is freezing up now, cold wind ruffles the edges of Jeno’s fringe. Renjun has his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat, smiles when Jeno introduces himself, the same way he smiled at Jaemin.

Just yesterday, Jaemin realizes. They haven’t been here for very long.

Renjun hasn’t, either, he came on a different ship, at least a week ago, before the snow. Direct course, China to the States, full of immigrants, he tells them, but he isn’t one of them. He came to visit his aunt, pick up some English and go back home, and now he’s stuck. Just like them, just like most travellers. 

The snow storms caught the entire east coast off guard, it said in the newspaper this morning.

“My auntie immigrated so many years ago, she’s basically a local by now,” he tells them, kicks a rock down the hill. “Lives downtown, in one of those big apartments, but I’m staying in a hotel.”

“Why?” It’s Jeno’s question, but Jaemin’s thinking the same. New York apartments are the urban dream, the one thing that pulls people into the cities, the illusion of mimicking what it would be like to be a beautiful unmarried woman starting university and renting a spacious brick wall apartment, ivy outside your window.

Jeno says Jaemin wastes too much of their power for reading cheesy magazines.

Renjun shrugs, almost too casual, blows a lock out of his face. A cloud of dust comes off. “Dunno, I think I just wasn’t very keen on staying with a middle aged lady even for what was supposed to be only a week.”

It’s a fair reason. Staying with family you don’t know well can be weird for many reasons, Jaemin supposes. He didn’t even like staying with his grandmother when his parents sent him away over the summer. To get away from home, they said, to get away from Jeno and your rotten minds, they didn’t say.

It was alright. He survived his grandmother’s chicken farm, and Jeno was there when he came back. Always waiting by the bike stands in front of the school. Until they finished, of course, Jaemin’s fingers tracing the star beside Jeno’s name in the graduation programme, a diploma for his parents to pat him on the head. Until Jeno got the job, and the loan from the bank, and they got on a boat to go far, far away, for as long as they could.

Renjun smokes, thick ropes of smoke protruding from his mouth when he speaks. A cigarette seems like a good way to warm yourself up, but Jaemin has also never smoked, so he doesn’t know how that works.

“You’re here for work?” Renjun asks. His eyebrows fly up.

Jeno nods, doesn’t elaborate. Jaemin does that for him, he always has. That’s how they work, two cogs in a system, the machine that is them, one can never spin without the other.

“Well, Jeno is.” He cocks his head to the side. “Or was. He’s pretty much done now, we’re supposed to go home on that ship. Go home, get our money, pay off the loan, and become rich.”

Renjun laughs, smoke curling around the corners of his lips. Something about him is so alluring, a magnetic field, the way he smiles, the coy ruffle of his hair, even the spot of dirt under his right eye. Like a freckle, draw attention, nail it down. His eyes crinkle when he smiles, glitter in the winter sun.

Nothing to pale them out here, he looks tan, rough wool around his shoulders. Someone who can afford a trip from China to America to visit family, but not a new coat. He smokes the cheapest brand of cigarettes.

Not that Jaemin pays attention to those kinds of things.

“What do you do?” Renjun asks, eyes on Jeno. He’s polite, smiles when appropriate, tries to include Jeno in the conversation if he hasn’t said much. Directs questions at him even though Jaemin is answering them.

Jeno isn’t shy, per se, he likes to talk, he knows how to talk. But Jaemin has always been his extended mouth, his brain’s outpost. Why make the effort when Jaemin can talk for him? Jaemin talks, friendly smile and charmant words, Jeno keeps his eyes open. They work like that, always have. Hand in hand.

He answers Renjun, though, before Jaemin can open his mouth. “I’m a wildlife biologist. Jaemin and I have been travelling around to probe some American vegetation.”

Renjun raises his eyebrows again, but it’s a different expression, now. Impressed, maybe, he didn’t expect that. They don’t look like a biologist couple, Jaemin guesses, or maybe they don’t look like a couple at all to him, probably not, hopefully, and he isn’t even a biologist, only Jeno is, but—that’s all besides the point.

Renjun is impressed, that’s the point, and he and Jeno fall into easy conversation.

It turns out Renjun is interested in art, has picked up painting plants and animals, studied their anatomy to get them right. He drops the name of a tree that makes Jeno’s eyes crease, talks full of botanical terms.

Jaemin stares at their faces instead, switches back and forth.

“We should all go for a drink together some time, before the snow melts.” It’s what everyone is waiting for, better weather, but now it’s an opportunity. A pretty boy in the dim light of the tavern, smoke around their heads, a burn of rum in Jaemin’s throat. He can almost see Renjun, cheeks red from something other than the cold.

“Sure.” Renjun smiles, slash of teeth, crease in his eyes. Jaemin wants to step closer. “Let me know when.”

_Jaemin,_ the voice says, and it’s no one he knows. It’s distorted, almost, pierces through the plane of his chest, digs into his heart. There’s nowhere to go, he’s running against the wall, and the voice is coming closer. _Jaemin, darling, where are you going? You know there’s no way out up there._

He knows, he knows, his head is pounding. The voice makes his head pound, makes him close his eyes.

Anywhere is better than where that voice is waiting for him, around the corner, sharp claws and wooden floors, he saw it. In the candy store, he knew he wasn’t dreaming. He saw the claws, the red eyes.

He felt himself bleeding onto the tiles, the cut in his hand, even if it was gone the next morning, even if Renjun and Jeno shook their heads and said he hadn’t left his bed all night. There were shadows around Renjun’s eyes, he was too pale, Jaemin knew he’d been out there with him. They’d all been there, and now the monster is here.

Monster? Is it a monster? Will he wake up soon, will Jeno tell him he was dreaming?

Jeno. He’s been meaning to tell him about the nightmares he had when they were down in Georgia, about the things he read before they came to New York. It was important, something Jaemin had to tell him, a warning, maybe, but before he can remember, it’s gone again. All of it. Jaemin’s mind is a black hole, and maybe it wasn’t so important after all. He would remember if it was, wouldn’t he? He’s not losing his mind.

_Darling._ The voice is closer now, and Jaemin’s running out of stairs to climb up. _Come here, darling._

His mother used to call him that, an image of her climbing up the stairs to the apartment, bag clutched in her hand, hair pinned back. _Jaemin darling._ A smile, a kiss to his forehead. _Come help me with dinner._

He always would, he’d stir noodles on the stove while his mother screamed at his father, while she cried by the counter, while she counted their money. Long red nails, hair messy from work, eyes shot red from all the coffee she drank, how much she smoked when his father wasn’t looking. 

She kept her cigarettes in the kitchen drawer, smoked while Jaemin was cooking.

Now her voice mixes in with the one calling out for him, and he runs faster. Up the stairs, up, up, up because there’s nowhere else to go. The voice is right behind him, he can’t stop a sob from ripping from his chest.

He never told his mother goodbye, never told her that he loves her. He just left. She will never know what happened to him, if he dies tonight, no one will tell her. His father died years ago, she’ll be all alone, she already is. He left her, and now he’ll never come back to her. _I’m so sorry, mom._

He bursts through the door into one of the hotel rooms, unlocks the window. Cold night wind over the city, it hits his face when he swings his leg over the windowsill. Renjun screams from down below. 

How did he get there? How did Jaemin get here? Hold on, zoom back. This is not the right memory.

“You guys could’ve told me that you’re staying here!” Renjun laughs, he looks exactly like Jaemin imagined. The rum makes his nose ruddy, and he grins, teeth bared. Jaemin’s hand closes around Jeno’s.

The tavern is dirty, opened at least a hundred years ago if you go by the age of the man behind the bar, yellowed teeth and opaque eyes. He stares at them over a row of dirty bottles, chortles something about paying rent, and there’s no music to hide his words between. Outside, the sun is setting, but over the harbor, the sky looks grey. No burning water, none of the beautiful shades of red Jaemin used to capture back home.

Renjun seems to be enjoying himself, a smile over a yellow glass of rum, a man on his left.

“We didn’t know you’re a regular.” Jeno slides into the seat next to Renjun, it looks so easy. Like he doesn’t have to think about it, like his mind isn’t occupied by how good Renjun looks out of his patchy coat.

The shirt he’s wearing looks almost too expensive for a boy like him, for a place like this. 

Jaemin doesn’t know what happened to the man Renjun was with, he doesn’t see him leave, doesn’t pay him any attention, but he’s gone when Jaemin slides on Renjun’s other side. 

“We can have that drink now, then!”

Yes, this is the right memory, Renjun pushing a lock of black hair behind his ear, laughing about how he’s let it grow too long again. Jaemin doesn’t think it’s too long, and he buys a round of drinks. Renjun’s mouth looks much softer up close, he speaks gentler words with them close, with alcohol under his tongue.

His eyes flash red in the light passing by the window, he leans his head on Jeno’s shoulder, smiles at Jaemin. A hand on the counter, and Jaemin is itching to reach for it.

“I’ve never seen the city at night.” Jeno finishes off his fourth drink, he has one hand heavy on Renjun’s shoulder. No one else is left in here, except for the old man. “Would love to, I’ve heard a lot of stories.”

“Stories?” Renjun asks. “Stories about what?”

The flame burns deep in Jaemin’s stomach, burns him inside out. It eats everything up, like fire does, everything inside him, until there’s nothing left, until he can’t breathe.

Renjun lies on a backdrop of white sheets, hair spidering out on the pillow, eyes closed.

It’s a peaceful scene, grimy lights of the city through the tiny window under the ceiling, reaching Jeno and Renjun’s figures, curled up around each other. Jaemin throws a blanket over them, keeps them warm.

The tavern is quiet at night, even the city is. No one leaves their houses after the sun sets, no one should.

_I’ve never seen the city at night_ , Jeno said, tried to coax them out of the tavern, into the New York nightlife, rum making them all too adventurous. But even intoxicated, Renjun kept them here, talked them into staying, into getting another drink, into letting him stay the night. Eyes big and glassy.

Renjun has been here for longer than he said he has, Jaemin found keys to an apartment in his coat. They didn’t look like hotel keys, and he doesn’t dress like a poor foreigner visiting family.

Whatever act he’s trying to put on, he just doesn’t look the part.

Jaemin leaves the tavern, quiet feet on creaking planks, leaves behind the men in his bed. His mother would scream and shout, two men in his bed, and he’s sneaking out in the middle of the night. 

The night was always worse at home, tears turning into anger, sobs into screams. His mother turned into a fury in the dark, baring teeth and dragging him by his hair. When she caught him with his tongue down another man’s throat, worse after his father passed. She froze into place.

He loves his mother so much, but he’s always tried to escape into the night.

The night is worse wherever you go.

It breathes heavy, Jaemin fills his lungs with air, puffs it back out under the yellow streetlight. He doesn’t know where to, his feet keep walking, pull him closer. The buildings are lit up, forgotten fairy lights, a string of yellow windows with faces behind them, faces with eyes and teeth and too much of everything.

He doesn’t know where to look first, up that wall, up that wall, down the gutter. Back to the tavern, he could run back before they get him, before Renjun and Jeno wake up.

Renjun tried so hard to keep them inside, teary eyes over a bright smile, over a glass of dirty whiskey. Touch on Jaemin’s arm, he kissed them both so hard. Anything to get them to stay, and yet, here Jaemin is, and Renjun is asleep in the tavern. No one is out here to help him. 

New York is even colder at night, Jeno’s coat doesn’t do much to keep the cold out, and there’s eyes. In the walls and in the windows, they follow him down the street. An empty street in the city that never sleeps.

“You shouldn’t be out there.” The voice has no origin, but it sounds like Renjun. Renjun? Did he see him leave, did he follow him out? He isn’t here, but has he ever truly been anywhere?

Renjun, ink black hair and as pale as the ice on the Hudson, his smile so very much alive. His face burns red in the cold air, burnt red with rum and under the touch of Jeno’s gentle kiss, but his eyes look older than he is. He looks at them like he knows where they’re going, like he can read Jaemin’s mind.

He says things a nineteen year old foreigner visiting family in New York City shouldn’t know, he has keys to an apartment he shouldn’t be able to own, he knows this city way too well.

He knows not to go outside after the sun sets, and he tried to warn them.

The city lies open like a ribcage, buildings towering into the sky like pale bones, broken down, a bleeding heart in the center. Everyone is bleeding, shattered glass, broken bone. Jaemin’s chest hurts, he’s so cold.

The eyes won’t leave him alone, but who has eyes between their ribs? They shouldn’t be here. 

Jaemin shouldn’t be here either. Renjun tried so hard to keep him away.

He enters a candy store down the street, pink lights and the smell of popcorn in the air. They sell candied apples and stacks of glossy magazines. Big city store, faces of young girls smiling at him from behind a shelf of caramel. There’s no clerk behind the counter, one of the strobe lights flickers.

Where is Renjun?

Red trickles across the floor, and the glass in the window shatters.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Renjun’s face is even, frown smoothed out. The sun burns through the dirty window a little brighter. He doesn’t look as pale in the sunlight. “We were all here the entire night.”

But how does he know? He was asleep. Or was he?

Renjun on the tiled floor, broken body like a rag doll under the electric light, and a splatter of blood on the wall. He didn’t move, couldn’t, maybe, but Jaemin knows he was there. He saw him, he heard Jeno groaning from behind a stack of bags, his open palm, the blood under the claws.

Renjun doesn’t have claws, and his teeth look normal when he laughs at him. “No Jaemin, I think you just had a nightmare.” He gets up, leaves the white sheets and Jeno’s body. “Look, the snow is melting.”

Way to change the topic, but they are all at the window, staring up. Water trickles down, dirty from footprints in the snow, a little puddle by the window. The sky up there looks bluer, less white and grey. There is hope, maybe they will get out of the city before the sun sets once more.

Renjun drags them out to the harbor, glowing faces under the sun. There’s a lot of people waiting for news in the big crowd, bundled up and pressed together, everyone trying to get a look at the water in the harbor.

It isn’t frozen up, but the snow is melting slowly.

Jeno holds Jaemin’s hand in the crowd, where people can’t see, to keep him warm. He has Renjun tucked under his other arm, and Jaemin wonders when this became a thing, the three of them. Maybe when they kissed him, rush of rum, or maybe when Renjun caught them, bodies aligned in the light of Jeno’s lamp.

“We’ll be stuck for at least another day, until the snow’s melted up enough,” the toothless man tells the sighing crowd. “But we should be ready to go by tomorrow night, unless it gets colder again.”

It’s a thing now, he guesses, when Renjun slips a hand into his on their way back to the tavern, like he doesn’t care if people will see. Jaemin doesn’t complain, even when he can’t tell what the matter with Renjun is.

He kisses him right after he kisses Jeno, it works like that, it’s easy even without the rum.

It’s all they do, for a little while of the day, Jaemin trapped against Jeno’s chest, heart beating against his back and Renjun’s lips on his face. He alternates between kissing them both until Jaemin whines for Jeno to kiss him.

The city looks so different by day, colorful houses, people milling in the streets in their thick coats. There’s no eyes in the walls now, nobody looks up at them even when they hold hands in public. The window in the candy store is still whole, and Renjun pulls at his arm when Jaemin stops to stare at it. The clerk smiles at him.

It all stitches itself back together once the sun rises, Renjun shines in the light. He looks so much more beautiful like this than he did pale and bleeding out.

When did Renjun bleed out? None of that happened. There’s no candy store on this street when Jaemin looks back, he tries to trace it on a map but it never existed. Jeno and Renjun laugh ahead of him, Renjun has an arm around Jeno, they call out for him to join them. A good joke, it’s all a good fucking joke.

The candy store is gone with its friendly clerk and the red eyes and the blood on the tiles, the children on the wall, and so is the hotel as soon as Jaemin jumps from the window.

Renjun laughs and wraps an arm around Jaemin’s neck.

Laughter warps into screams, screams louder, screams higher until Jaemin’s eardrums explode.

The hotel, endless corridors and the voice behind him, chasing him, his mother’s voice and her face on the stairs in their apartment building. She cries by the kitchen counter and Jaemin is blind with rage. Who dares to make her cry, fat tears down smooth cheeks. The fingers of a thirteen year old boy close around a knife.

Jeno’s body, Renjun’s body, spread thin on the mattress. Renjun looks paler under the surgical light, Jeno looks stronger. He gets back up, Renjun doesn’t move. Someone puts a blanket over his head.

“Is he dead?” Jaemin asks into the skin of Jeno’s neck. “Is he dead?”

Laughter rumbles against him, it doesn’t turn into screams this time. Jaemin is here now, the scene is set. Jeno is so warm, he clings to him tighter. He’s always clung to Jeno. “He’s been dead since we met him.”

Renjun gets back up, pale skinned and black-eyed and sharp-toothed, more edges than he should have, everything a little sharper than it should be. Knives in his belt.

He gets back up, Jaemin’s mother doesn’t. She stays crying by the kitchen counter, forever.

Did he really leave her? Did she hate him, did she chase him out of her house when she found Jeno in his bed, when she found the letters they’d been writing, of love and death? He didn’t leave her, she left him.

Jaemin has never killed anyone, Jeno assures him of this, a bundle on the mattress in his room back home. _You didn’t kill your father, it wasn’t your fault._ Kisses down Jaemin’s cheek, he kisses his tears away. Down his neck, over his shoulders like freckles. _You didn’t do it. You put the knife back down._

Thirteen year old Jaemin puts the knife back down, but he’s also just a boy.

His mother screams when she finds the letters in his room years later, she burns them all, she drags Jaemin by his hair and yells until he can’t hear her anymore. Everything is too loud in their house.

She burnt the letters but Jeno writes him another one, one of dreams and love, and freedom in a faraway country. A loan in his bank and tickets that would take them far, far away from home. Two tickets, he has two of them. He’s asking Jaemin to come with him, to run away with him. _To a better life._

Twenty something year old Jaemin throws the knife into his bag before he leaves the house that night.

His mother will stay crying by the kitchen counter forever.

There’s a cut on Renjun’s cheek this time. This time, he can’t hide it, can’t say he doesn’t know what Jaemin is talking about. The cut is there, it stays, Jaemin knows he wasn’t dreaming.

“We should go,” he says, but he catches himself. His hand freezes mid air, stuffing clothes into a bag, they were strewn all over the room. “ _You_ should go. This city isn’t for you, you can’t stay here.”

Jeno watches from the other side of the room, legs crossed on the bed and his notebook in the light of the nightstand lamp. The notebook that brought them here, neat handwriting and little scribbles that Renjun added over the past few days. “But it is for you? We can’t stay, but you can?”

Renjun looks up at him, looks back at Jaemin. His eyes are no longer as warm, blown wide with worry, mouth a quivering line. “I’m used to this place, I can handle it. You can’t. Get out while you still can.”

There is something special about seeing the boy you love hold the boy you might be falling in love with, too. Renjun and Jeno fit together like they were made for each other. Jeno presses his face into the crook of Renjun’s neck, arms wound around each other. A perfect picture, captured in time. Jaemin aches for his camera.

Renjun whispers into Jeno’s ear, but Jaemin still hears him loud and clear.

“This city is dangerous for him. If you love him, you need to get him out of here before it’s too late.” A hand smoothes down the side of Jeno’s face. “He can’t stay another night. I don’t know if I could save him again.”

They’re warm when they gesture for Jaemin to join their embrace, warm bodies, soft skin, Renjun’s hair tickles Jaemin’s jaw when he presses closer. The hearts beating in their chests are real.

Jeno presses his nose into the side of Jaemin’s neck and Jaemin knows Jeno’s never had to protect him. They work on their own, Jeno does all his work on his own, but they work better as a team, Jaemin by his side to catch his mistakes, to catch him mid-air, hands around his arms. Safe. 

Jeno’s never had to protect Jaemin, not in all these years, but he’s safe. A pillar to curl up against, warm and secure, a hand brushed down Jaemin’s back and a kiss against his forehead. Their love smells like leaves in the rain at night, smells like home and the soap Jeno uses. Love smells like Jeno and, faintly, like Renjun now.

Renjun, who tells Jeno to take Jaemin away if he loves him, who burns just a little too red. Way too alive, eyes glassy like a doll’s. Face like an oversaturated picture of a man. _He’s been dead since we met him._

It all makes sense, the cut on his cheek, his hand on Jaemin’s back when they leave the tavern.

He doesn’t pale in the cold wind, the keys jingle in his pocket and he walks these streets like his home. It is, he’s not trying to hide anymore. They didn’t fall victim to him, bloodless corpses in the basement of a tavern. He didn’t follow them there to stay, but he did anyway. He’s still here, a cold hand in Jaemin’s.

“Come with us,” Jeno says at the harbor that night, Renjun’s face in his hands, the sun low over the sea.

The light paints them rosy, all of the people milling by the ship. A man shouts for his companion down by the docks, a woman drags two trunks along with her, a flutter of laughter in a cafe nearby. 

They can finally leave, none of them worry about what they leave behind.

None of them except for two boys just out of sight from the harbor, a body so warm that it burns in their arms. Has he always been this warm, is he trying to set them to flames? Maybe he has from the start.

He was nothing more than a stranger in the snow, hair dripping wet, smile so very alive. Jaemin couldn’t see back then, that he’s too alive to be real. Too bright, too red, like a painted face, ruddy cheeks and lips like cherries. They taste just as sweet, but his hair smells like smoke and sweat.

“This is my home,” Renjun says with a smile, his keys dangle on his hand, now. Uncurl his fingers and they would fall into the dirt at their feet. Free him from his curse. “I haven’t left this place in years.”

“There’s a first for everything.” Jeno’s voice as he brushes a thumb down Renjun’s cheek. Does he not care?

Care about what? What is Renjun’s curse? A man trapped in place, frozen in time, he can’t be much older than twenty-three, and yet. And yet he is here, and the thoughts escape Jaemin before he can think them.

Where is his mind, where did he lose himself?

When they leave Renjun behind on the lookout above the harbor, when Jeno keeps a hand on his shoulder on their way across the gangway. The man at the ticket stand throws them a toothless smile.

“On your way back home, lads?”

And Jeno replies something, perfect English because he is like that, because he spends too much time buried in his books, but Jaemin can’t hear him, can’t make out what they’re saying. Jeno’s hand burns on his shoulder, orange sunlight falls onto the ship floor, and the city calls out for them.

A city can’t speak, but New York shouldn’t have eyes in its walls, either. Renjun shouldn’t be so beautiful, shouldn’t be older than twenty-something, but he is, still. Blood drips from his lips, Jaemin can’t see him anymore.

When did Renjun become so important? What’s his part in this story, Jaemin still can’t tell.

The ship leaves the harbor just after the sun sets, just after the eyes in the walls open and Jaemin screams into his pillow, Jeno’s hands on his back. Burning, burning until he can’t smell the smoke.

Renjun finds them in the middle of the night, a hand on Jaemin’s face and Jeno is first to shoot awake.

He shakes him until Jaemin pulls free from the shadows in the corners of his sight, the flames still eating away at his chest. He still sees claws on white tiles, flickering lights, but then there’s Renjun perched on the edge of the bed. Ink black and golden in the light of their lantern.

“Don’t ask,” he says. A grin smeared with blood. It’s gone when Jaemin blinks.

They don’t ask, they crash together and they fall. Tumble over the edge of the bed with Renjun’s head against his chest, what does it matter? Jeno laughs and reaches out his hands to pull them back up.

Their cabin smells like candle wax, Jeno’s soap, and Renjun’s hair, smells like laughter and kisses. The light is so much warmer on the open ocean. Renjun burns less bright with every mile they part from the city.

How did they get here? How did a stranger look at Jaemin and decide to stay, to leave his home behind and follow them halfway across the world? How many days, how many nights have passed since the afternoon he met Renjun in the snow, since they took back down to their room?

It’s a blur, the candy store and the hotel, his mother by the kitchen counter. His mother was never in America with them, Jaemin knows she’s buried back home in Korea. He didn’t see her die, is she really dead?

Renjun cut open on the bed, sewn back together, the cut on his cheek in the morning. Jeno in his childhood bedroom, he writes him another letter, but all of this has happened before. This didn’t happen in New York, Jeno tells him he’s got it all wrong, he has to start again. He doesn’t want to.

Renjun presses a kiss behind his ear and tells him it’s okay, they’ll be safe. The shadows can’t reach them out there, but Jaemin doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t remember any shadows.

Only voices and claws, and Renjun’s rag doll body on the tiles. The light flickers but it’s still there. There are no shadows in a city full of light, every corner stuffed with lamps to keep the evil out. 

Not that it works, but no one ever dares to look. No one except Jaemin.

He falls back asleep with his head of Jeno’s chest and Renjun’s hand in his, a worn out notebook next to Jeno’s on the desk. Renjun says they’ll be okay, things will be okay. Jeno kisses them both goodnight.

They don’t know, though. They have no idea. Nothing will ever be okay again. 

You will never leave New York.

**Author's Note:**

> i promise i love jaemin more than i love myself
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/rosyjaeh)/[cc](https://curiouscat.me/rosyjaem)


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